Car ownership in real life doesn’t come with its fair share of money cheat codes.
It is common sense to the older generation, but less so with the younger ones from my observation.
Many people around my age (20 and under) have played and dreamed of the perfect reality of having a collection of cars, regardless of age. It can’t be helped – most enthusiasts have grown up playing titles like Forza, Gran Turismo, and so much more especially in recent years.
Lots of these games feature the concept of having more than one year. Correction, essentially all of them have this feature of having at least more than one. Most games actually prefer the player to have a full arsenal of cars to choose from for specific use cases, and to let the player use many cars within the game’s assortment.
This combined with many a western influence of people owning cars at young ages and or having several cars has definitely transformed how fresher car enthusiasts have come to eye these cars.
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| Those video games have definitely spoiled us with one too many aspirations to fulfill. |
But, aside from basic or advanced mechanical knowledge received from learning through car media, the actual mental hurdle of actually owning a car is super alien.
I mean, it definitely is for those who never owned a car before – there’s so many things to consider and live with that is hardly represented anywhere else.
I speak from a standpoint of co-owning and owning three cars before hitting the 2# age mark. I thought I’d be living the Forza Horizon or more accurately the old Gran Turismo dream (because all of my cars happen to be crapboxes that aren’t popular enough to be represented in newer games).
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| Driving in video games and in real life is plenty different – cliché, but sometimes not acknowledged |
As different as an old and new-ish car is in terms of overall design and quality, they are generally the cars that enthusiasts want most. This appeal comes could derive from – viewership in games, movies, Tiktok / Instagram Reels, history, car media, the list goes on.
These cars being dated or will be dated when bought will all fare the same general issue – reliability.
Its a really common word, reliability, but what does it mean? A lot of us petrolheads do grasp the basic concept that any car is bound to break, and it will then have to be repaired. But how many said petrolheads, especially those who never owned a car before, actually understand it?
When you own a car, you will be accustomed and be reliant on it. (unless you hate driving) If said car breaks down, gets defected or for whatever reason is unable to be used, you’re out of a car.
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| “Sir, your car is non-compliant.” |
Schedules affected, plans cancelled. On top of having your time spent (COE spent in the case of Singapore), the additional inconvenience is also cost.
You could find something very basic, common, and notoriously reliable and you would be skipping on the worry of heavy maintenance and bills, but I’ll break it down for less reliable cars, otherwise any.
Depending on make, model, location of parts, shipping, currency differences, workshop charges, potential for additional parts to spoil – these are one of many factors that are both well-documented and not when undergoing the process of making a car road-worthy again.
Many videos and games don’t portray it – Within a 40 minute video, how can you make the viewer truly feel that 2-3 months of progression apart from cutting the videos across the same period? How do you make the player feel like they have just spent half a year rebuilding a core component of the car?
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| Collecting maintenance records might be fun, but hardly within a video game. |
Quoting the president and co-founder of Valve, the company behind many mythical titles like the Half-Life series: “I have never thought to myself that realism is fun. I go play games to have fun.”
These hard-reality aspects don’t get represented, which does greatly improve the flow of the game. However, the actual process of these quick progression isn’t fully reflected, although better than worse for the game as mentioned.
Excluding your emotions and how you will react to a mishap or two with the car, I think car ownership is much more fun done digitally than in real-life, from the perspective of someone who’s got to experience both concurrently.
~Efini
Read more: Fuel for Thought: My token of appreciation to another Elan
